HD Kumaraswamy takes on Shivakumar, says renaming Ramanagar as Bengaluru South is real estate play

Time of India

23-05-2025

Union Heavy Industries & Steel Minister
HD Kumaraswamy
on Friday lashed out at Dy CM
DK Shivakumar
for influencing the state government to rename
Ramanagar
as
Bengaluru South
district while accusing him of promoting his
real estate
interests with the decision.
Kumaraswamy represents the neighbouring Mandya while his brother-in-law Dr CN Manjunath (BJP) represents Bengaluru Rural in the Lok Sabha. Ramangar is part of Manjunath's constituency. Kumaraswamy, addressing a press conference in Delhi, slammed the Cabinet decision, the purpose of which, he said, was to drive up the real estate prices.
Ramanagar was carved out of Bangalore Rural district in August 2007 when Kumaraswamy was the CM. The JDS leader had also represented Ramanagara in the assembly.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
An engineer reveals: 1 simple trick to get all TV channels
Techno Mag
Learn More
Undo
"Situations will change. The name they've changed now will change in the future," Kumaraswamy said.
Shivakumar
represents Kanakapura in the assembly, and the political rivalry between him and Kumaraswamy exacerbated after Manjunath defeated his younger brother DK Suresh (Congress) in the LS polls, last year.
The Dy CM announced the Cabinet decision in Bengaluru on Thursday, saying they were restoring the district's earlier name which had the prefix Bangalore.
Live Events
'Ramanagar has given the state three CMs. Kengal Hanumanthaiah built the magnificent Vidhana Soudha that the world is in awe of. He challenged Nehru politically. They could've named the district after such a great leader. If they had, I would've appreciated it. But using Kengal's name wouldn't raise their land value. Right?" Kumaraswamy said.
Renaming was part of a conspiracy by Shivakumar to inflate land prices. "The hidden agenda is clear… After all, this man is a real estate businessman. He knows how to play tricks to increase his land value…'
In October 2023, months after coming to power, Shivakumar had urged voters in Kanakapura not to sell their farmlands to Bengalureans, saying the taluk would one day merge with Bengaluru and prices of their land would shoot up.
Shivakumar, who has won from Kanakapura taluk eight times, had told his voters that he could neither support them with money nor build houses for them. "But God has given me the strength to increase the value of your property ten times... Remember you don't belong to Ramanagar district, but Bengaluru district.'
The Deputy CM, who is also in charge of the coveted Bengaluru City portfolio, had said at a temple event. 'A day will soon come when villages here will become part of Bengaluru. At that time, the buyers will value your land by feet (not acres).'
Later, in a chat with ET, Shivakumar had said he was working on certain plans for his taluk including expansion of the industrial suburb of Harohalli, nestled between Bengaluru and Kanakapura.
The Cabinet decision to rename Ramanagar follows a law to split Bengaluru's civic body BBMP into multiple corporations and bring it under the ambit of
Greater Bengaluru Authority
under the CM.
Karnataka's capital witnessed a blistering growth in the past two decades, and the civic body expanded subsuming the city municipal councils and 110 villages in the vicinity. The city, home to several global technology firms and thousands of startups with an estimated 2.3 million tech workers, also ranks among the top few global cities in the startup landscape.